AOL buying Netscape
Antonius Pius
Am I the only one out here who thinks that, contrary to the prattle of the
news media, the potential AOL purchase of Netscape is a non-event?
John - N8086N
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Larry Brasfield
>I was just wondering...
>
>Am I the only one out here who thinks that, contrary to the prattle of the
>news media, the potential AOL purchase of Netscape is a non-event?
No, you are not.
There is little reason to think that
Effects(AOL + Netscape) != Effects(AOL) + Effects(Netscape)
whether you substitute "Effects" with market effect, profitability,
technical prowess, frisbee production, or whatever.
The hoopla surrounding it is, to me, yet another sign that the
news media no longer see themselves as reporters but as
story-makers. Their judgment is very suspect, IMO.
-Larry Brasfield
Antonius Pius
According to the AP Wire, AOL has bought Netscape.
Also, according to AP:
"The agreement also cements AOL's position as a new superpower in the
high-tech world, giving it remarkable reach and enough influence to challenge
industry giant Microsoft's dominance in key areas."
It looks to me like AOL has just paid $4.21B for a company that has yet to
make money. (AOL, did you check NSCP's P/E ratio?) and was in a Graveyard
Spiral.
So now a glorified telephone company has bought a dying software company. Bill
Gates must be really scared..
L. Darrell Ray
> According to the AP Wire, AOL has bought Netscape.
>
> Also, according to AP:
>
> "The agreement also cements AOL's position as a new superpower in the
> high-tech world, giving it remarkable reach and enough influence to challenge
> industry giant Microsoft's dominance in key areas."
>
> It looks to me like AOL has just paid $4.21B for a company that has yet to
> make money. (AOL, did you check NSCP's P/E ratio?) and was in a Graveyard
> Spiral.
>
> So now a glorified telephone company has bought a dying software company. Bill
> Gates must be really scared..
>
> John - N8086N
>
Most experts (loud laughter heard :-) think that gateway sites such as
AOL, Netscape, Yahoo etc. are worth a lot of money. With the
combination of AOL and Netscape AOL is expected to reach a critical mass
in the number of people that can be reached. Just on the basis of the
number of people seeing the AOL site (Web and AOL Only) they are already
able to sell a *LOT* of advertising and E-commerce live links and with
the addition of the Netscape sites are expected to be the major (maybe
controlling) player in this market.
--
L. Darrell Ray
ASQ Certified Software Quality Engineer
Dade Behring
JRStern
>It looks to me like AOL has just paid $4.21B for a company that has yet to
>make money. (AOL, did you check NSCP's P/E ratio?) and was in a Graveyard
>Spiral.
Has AOL ever made a profit?
As I understand it, they made a few cents in the recent quarter, for
the first time. So, maybe they were made for each other. <g>
Joshua Stern
JRS...@gte.net
JRStern
>Am I the only one out here who thinks that, contrary to the prattle of the
>news media, the potential AOL purchase of Netscape is a non-event?
Non-event for the likes of us.
All the rubes who use aol or have their homepage on netscape.com will
see some kind of difference, I guess. There may be homicides,
suicides, and mass resignations by Netscape personnel, forced to deal
with AOL's personnel and customer base. As I heard some commentator
ask, how many Netscape personnel have AOL accounts?
OTOH, in this hyper-inflated world of internet companies, who knows,
this qualifies as a new level of bafflegab, at least.
Joshua Stern
JRS...@gte.net
Frank Adrian
weasel its way out of the anti-trust litigation. They've already asked for
dismissal on the grounds that Netscape is obviously doing just fine now :-(.
--
Frank A. Adrian
First DataBank
frank_...@firstdatabank.com (W)
fra...@europa.com (H)
This message does not necessarily reflect those of my employer,
its parent company, or any of the co-subsidiaries of the parent
company.
JRStern wrote in message <73fqf9$8s8$2...@news-2.news.gte.net>...
JRStern
<frank_...@firstdatabank.com> wrote:
>Of course, the only bad thing about this is that it may allow Microsoft to
>weasel its way out of the anti-trust litigation. They've already asked for
>dismissal on the grounds that Netscape is obviously doing just fine now :-(.
Netscape should take over the world now. Microsoft is accused of
unfair competition because they give away, what, maybe 100 million
copies per year of Internet Explorer, ... and Netscape couldn't keep
up, so they went whining to Congress. Well, AOL probably sent me
alone that many CDs last year, so they ought to get super-rich now
that they can give away Netscape in truly unheard-of volumes.
Gads, we're living in weird times.
Joshua Stern
JRS...@gte.net
Tim McDermott
Frank Adrian wrote:
> Of course, the only bad thing about this is that it may allow Microsoft to
> weasel its way out of the anti-trust litigation. They've already asked for
> dismissal on the grounds that Netscape is obviously doing just fine now :-(.
Or you can look at it the other way and decide that Netscape has been driven out
of business.
The merger is bad news for MS, but will have very little effect in the techie
side of their business. MS stock sells for around 60 times earnings. The only
way that investors are willing to pay that kind of premium is if they expect MS
profits to grow at (or above) 60% per year. MS won't get that kind of growth
from NT, language suites, or even desktop applications; they already own those
markets. MS has to conquer the internet and e-commerce. The AOL acquisition of
Netscape makes that much harder.
Once MS stops growing _very_ fast, the stock price falls to half or a third of
what it is now; hoardes of investors get burned, then angry. And for all his
power, Mister Bill does not want to deal with angry stockholders. They _can_
kick out the CEO if they want to bad enough.
Tim
John Goodsen
>Once MS stops growing _very_ fast, the stock price falls to half or a third of
>what it is now; hoardes of investors get burned, then angry. And for all his
>power, Mister Bill does not want to deal with angry stockholders. They _can_
>kick out the CEO if they want to bad enough.
>
Depends how much voting stock the parties involved actually own.
Thaddeus L. Olczyk
Actually, Bill Gates retired from day to day opertion several months
ago. Steve Balmer now does that work.
Actually Microsoft has many problems. They are going to have a hard
time convincing employees ( especially new employees ) to take stock
options since there is very little upside left to MS stock. Old
employees are going to become fully vested soon. This means that
MS is going to have to pay them more. Their move hiring away
Borland employees with million dollar salaries and million dollar
bonuses is going to look bad soon ( when old employees ask why they
aren't worth that much).
Antonius Pius
>Actually, Bill Gates retired from day to day opertion several months
>ago. Steve Balmer now does that work.
>
>Actually Microsoft has many problems. They are going to have a hard
>time convincing employees ( especially new employees ) to take stock
>options since there is very little upside left to MS stock. Old
>employees are going to become fully vested soon. This means that
>MS is going to have to pay them more. Their move hiring away
>Borland employees with million dollar salaries and million dollar
>bonuses is going to look bad soon ( when old employees ask why they
>aren't worth that much).
100% in agreement. Part of M$'s financial success has been in their ability to
hold down up front costs by giving low salaries in exchange for stock options.
Everyone in the industry knows that when you interview at M$ you have to
exaggerate your salary a lot, because they are going to offer you LESS than
what you are already making.
On thing people seem to miss is that Microsoft is mismanaged. For those of us
who worked a Digital during the glory days of the 80's can see a lot of
similarities. In fact much of the middle management that ran Digital into the
ground has migrated to M$.
In Digital, the lack of management was covered up by the fact the company was
making a lot of money. As long the company could run on autopilot, with
customers banging on the door for orders it could survive in spite of
mismanagement. The same is true at M$. Of course Digital was in much sounder
financial shape than M$ is with its options time bomb ticking away.
Antonius Pius
>Most experts (loud laughter heard :-) think that gateway sites such as
>AOL, Netscape, Yahoo etc. are worth a lot of money. With the
>combination of AOL and Netscape AOL is expected to reach a critical mass
>in the number of people that can be reached. Just on the basis of the
>number of people seeing the AOL site (Web and AOL Only) they are already
>able to sell a *LOT* of advertising and E-commerce live links and with
>the addition of the Netscape sites are expected to be the major (maybe
>controlling) player in this market.
Wait until people figure out that no one pays attention to web advertising.
:-)